Background: Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a globally prevalent issue, particularly for
women in high-conflict impoverished regions, such as South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. IPV
is proven to lead to a range of mental and physical health issues, including depression and
suicidal behaviors, homicide, and HIV infection. Previous methods to reduce IPV have included
community-level interventions, such as the SASA! program, as well as relationship-level
interventions. Little research has investigated the mechanisms behind domestic violence and its
response to such interventions. This is a qualitative study that aims to uncover these mechanisms
and expand upon knowledge of IPV in poverty-stricken areas. In other terms, this study seeks to
answer the question: how does the effect of unconditional cash transfers work to decrease IPV
rates in the studied population of impoverished, rural Kenya?
Methods: The qualitative data of this study, which was collected in August and September of
2015 as part of the second endline of the GiveDirectly randomized field experiment to deliver
unconditional cash transfers to randomly selected impoverished households in randomly selected
villages in rural Kenya, found that IPV was significantly reduced. The current study seeks to
understand the underlying mechanisms behind the relationship between the cash transfers and the
reduction in IPV through analysis of 24 semi-structured in-depth interviews with male
community members. The treatment males received cash transfers and the control males did not
receive transfers but resided in the same villages as other treatment males. The physical and
sexual violence occurrences were quantitatively measured 3.5 years after baseline, and the
follow-up participants used in this study were selected based on female reports of physical and/or
sexual violence. Follow-up participants were interviewed, and these interviews served as the
qualitative data that was audio recorded, completely translated and transcribed, and thematically
analyzed complimented with constant comparative methods.
Results: Our qualitative findings suggest a number of mechanisms through which IPV was
observed to decrease in both treatment and spillover households following the cash transfer
interventions. The strongest pathways appear to be through improving of psychological
wellbeing, increasing financial security, and changing of social norms, all of which appear to
affect partner relationships and conflicts. The cash transfers lowered sources of conflict, such as
financial stress and threats to masculinity, as well improved conflict coping mechanisms, such as
joint-decision making skills. The combination of lower conflict along with stronger coping
mechanisms helps attribute to reduced domestic violence reports. Additionally, changed social
norms regarding gender violence attitudes, as well as greater optimism and hope about the future
contributed to the observed reduction in reports of IPV in spillover households.
Discussion: This paper reveals the ways through which unconditional cash transfers increase
economic empowerment of participants, which can decrease IPV rates in impoverished areas
through the reduced financial strain, improved psychological wellbeing, greater relationship
bond between partners, and altered community and familial status. This sheds light into the
psychological reasons attributing to domestic violence, as well as possible interventions that can
be implemented to reduce domestic violence in developing countries.